COSME - Call for Proposals - Co-financing of public procurement of innovation consortia

Objectives
This call for proposals is intended to contribute to the general objective of “strengthening the competitiveness and sustainability of the Union's enterprises, particularly SMEs”. In particular, this call for proposals is expected to contribute to a significant increase in the proportion of SMEs that have access to the public procurement market.

This call for proposals has three main objectives.

1. The first objective is to encourage cooperation between public buyers to promote the use of public procurement to contribute to the development of innovative solutions able to tackle their needs.
2. The second objective is to increase the impact of public procurement on innovation. Public procurement can be used as a tool to foster innovation in areas of strong public interest such as, for instance, clean energy (contributing to Paris targets for fighting climate change) or healthcare. This will in turn encourage innovative EU companies, in particular SMEs, to develop new solutions to address societal challenges.
3. The third objective is to link and establish synergies with research and innovation projects funded by the EU whenever possible. This may be relevant in particular with other projects funded by the Commission in relation to innovation procurement
Actions
The following activities are mandatory to be carried out in the context of this call for proposals:

Assessment of the public buyers’ needs
Market consultation
Engaging the market jointly
Capacity Building and Coordination between public buyers
Developing the specifications
Preparation and implementation of the tendering procedure
Communication on the achievements of the projects